I’ve just been reading over my recent journal entries and noticed how terribly depressing I must seem. I may be rather pessimistic and cynical, and I may be somewhat socially reserved, but I swear I’m not really this depressing in real life. I’m not always all doom and gloom; sometimes I’m puppies and sunshine! OK, maybe not puppies and sunshine… but I am optimistic and bright-eyed from time to time. I’m not sure why I only seem to post when I am upset or bemused about something. Maybe misery is my muse? Anyhow, the point is: please take everything you read here with a grain of salt. I have my ups and downs, but I’m really an OK guy for the most part, I swear.

It is easier to try to be a decent person once you accept the fact and admit to yourself that you are a bad man. It allows you to answer a lot of difficult questions with honesty and without shame. It grants a peace, even though that peace is not always the what one might ideally consider as such.

Iam interesting, but not exciting. I think that I disappoint a lot of people who confuse the two when they first meet me. That’s just who I am though. I may be kind of exciting from time to time, but that’s just a rare occasion, for the most part. I think that people put too much stock in excitement anyway though. People are too much into living for the stimulated moment and not enough into just living well.

In other news, isn’t it funny how nostalgia can warm your heart and break it at the same time?

The past couple days have been very odd for me. I have been slipping into periods of almost complete incoherence lately. While walking home from class this afternoon, I caught myself feeling incredible impulses to do some very unusual and innapropiate things and realized that my mind seemed to be slipping into almost subconscious control. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, but I began to realize that it has been happening with more and more frequency of late, and it is starting to scare me.

The best way that I can think of to describe it is that I am losing conscious control of myself, slipping into subconscious autonomy. It is like blacking out for a few minutes and then coming back, but usually having a vague idea of what just happened. I am losing lucidity. It’s kind of like being in a zombie-state or some sort of fucked up quietism; I am physically active and responsive, but at best, my conscious mind is merely hanging on for the ride.

Who is the better artist?
The artist whose work is simple, accessible, direct? The artist who is loved by the masses?
Or the artist whose work is vague, ambiguous, complex, convoluted? The artist who is loved by other artists?
Both have their own merits, both have positives and negatives, but which one is best?
I suppose that it all comes down to personal values.
But if so many more people value the simple, then does that make it better? Majority rule?
And yet, if the artists are considered elite, if those who are valued by the masses value the complex, then does that make the complex better? Hierarchical/structural valuation?